The United States of Masacres.

[ApatheticNoMore]

when trump says he's a nationalist he's going for the connotation, so arguing about exact meanings sure is silly (or you wouldn't know a dog whistle if it busted your eardrums - dog whistles that sound like train whistles someone quipped - no kidding, he's not subtle). And what are the connotations, perhaps nazism, but I suspect he was more going for white nationalist (but aren't those the same thing? not entirely - white racism in this country preceeded the nazi's by a long time indeed).

Look if Trump wanted to say he was protectionist, he could have used that word. He could have said isolationist (not accurate as the foreign wars never end, but whatever). He could have just said he would prioritize U.S. interests. But he chose the words he did to appeal to those he did.

[Williamsmith]

We’ve reached an historical point in the Trump movement. He has gone past just simply constructing an alternate reality for his followers. In the MAGA bomber incident and now the Pittsburgh massacre, he has refused to acknowledge his influence in the lives of the actors and has embraced the violence. There is a bold contempt for anything factual and an insincere charade each time someone tries to present facts.

All that is important is to continue hammering home the lies and never ever accept responsibility or acknowledge wrong. The Jews in Pittsburgh don’t want Trump visiting and making a mockery of what happened. Mike Pence showed his colors by inviting a Messianic Rabbi to open a campaign meeting with a prayer. This was an insult to Jews. Pence views them as lost people. He is the heir apparent to Trump and a worse purveyor of false narrative than Trump.

[Ultralight]

when trump says he's a nationalist he's going for the connotation, so arguing about exact meanings sure is silly (or you wouldn't know a dog whistle if it busted your eardrums - dog whistles that sound like train whistles someone quipped - no kidding, he's not subtle). And what are the connotations, perhaps nazism, but I suspect he was more going for white nationalist (but aren't those the same thing? not entirely - white racism in this country preceeded the nazi's by a long time indeed).

Look if Trump wanted to say he was protectionist, he could have used that word. He could have said isolationist (not accurate as the foreign wars never end, but whatever). He could have just said he would prioritize U.S. interests. But he chose the words he did to appeal to those he did.

When someone blows a "dog whistle" who is responsible for the listeners' actions? The person who blew the whistle or the people who heard it?

[catherine]

My DH is sitting all day watching TV because of 3 cracked ribs he got last Tuesday, so while I'm working I can hear the TV. He was watching Schindler's List for the umpteenth time, and Netflix was doing what it does.. "Because you liked Schindler's List..." and so from my POV it sounded like he was binge watching Holocaust movies, but he was just tired and pain-weary so he was letting the TV do its thing.

Point being, I know that the thought that the Trump movement bears resemblance to the early Nazi movement seems a bit hyperbolic, but is it? Watching the brazen acts that have taken place this week, and reading Facebook posts by my ultra-right friends, it just feels like people feel they can peel off the girdle of self-restraint and civility. The face that people usually don't show in public is starting to appear behind the cracked facade that is now swelling with the consequences of having a President who unrelentingly fans the flames of humanity's darker side. And feelings of fear, exclusivity and separateness are all being validated with lies and hate.

[Ultralight]

To all of you who think Trump and his followers are or are like Nazis, my question is this: Will you be "good Germans" and keep your head down, your mouth shut, and do your work for the big machine?

Or will you resist?

[Williamsmith]

To all of you who think Trump and his followers are or are like Nazis, my question is this: Will you be "good Germans" and keep your head down, your mouth shut, and do your work for the big machine?

Or will you resist?

In my view, you don’t understand. Trump is the symptom. Not the disease. What is your outline for resistance?

[LDAHL]

What about hounding women who are just walking in to a Planned Parenthood for their pap smear and birth control? Does National Review condemn that as well?

They have in the past.

[LDAHL]

Point being, I know that the thought that the Trump movement bears resemblance to the early Nazi movement seems a bit hyperbolic, but is it?

Yes. It is.

Comparing people you don’t like to Nazis has been a popular low-effort polemical cliche pretty much since Berlin fell. It has worn so thin due to overuse that I find it impossible to take seriously.

[catherine]

Yes. It is.

Comparing people you don’t like to Nazis has been a popular low-effort polemical cliche pretty much sense Berlin fell. It has worn so thin due to overuse that I find it impossible to take seriously.

When a leader strives to do nothing except divide people; when he publicly ridicules citizens with impunity; when he only expresses condemnation about domestic terrorism when his party and his family twists his arm; when he claims that nothing is more important than our national self-interest at the expense of everything else... the similarity to Hitler's modus operandi are real, not imagined.

It's not that I don't like the guy. I'll bet he's fun to have dinner with. He is not good for binding us together. He is not attending to the better angels of our nature. If division is allowed to run rampant in our country, I don't see a good end to that.

[Williamsmith]

Yes. It is.

Comparing people you don’t like to Nazis has been a popular low-effort polemical cliche pretty much since Berlin fell. It has worn so thin due to overuse that I find it impossible to take seriously.

Cynicism aside, you don’t see any similarity to Nazi fabrications of enemies of the country in order to install a false reality with which people with purposeless lives become affirmed? The Nazis perfected the use of propaganda and Trump is a master at it. Just as one example.